Day 8- sketchy ethics

[gardeniabee]

So, for my primary project out here, I was asked to do a series of "case studies" on Shell Oil. These case studies are to be based on a "Shell Oil Report" that was paid for by my organization. This "report" is something I would give a failing grade in a freshman-level English course! It is full of grammatical (AND FACTUAL) errors, and at some points it seems as though the author is just making shit up!

I told my boss I had some ethical problems with the project, but she said not to worry, that they "didn't care about the typos, as long as the research is good." Well, the research *isn't* good. The paper doesn't list sources at all, for the broad, sweeping generalizations that it makes. The only sources it lists are newspaper articles on Shell Oil spills. When the author brings up toxic pollution, no QUANTITATIVE examples are given; its "a lot" or "a huge amount."

I don't feel comfortable using this. They said they want me to "make it publishable" and I don't really know what to do. Apparently, they paid this guy a bunch of money and don't want it to go to waste. I want to throw the damn thing in the trash can.

Edit: I'm going to give doing the reports from the ground up a shot. I'm going to talk with my boss again, and say that I want to do this the *right* way. I hope she can respect that; if she can't, this probably isn't the place I want to be working anyways, and I can try to just suck it up and work it like a normal "job" instead of putting my heart into things, the way I usually do.

Comments

[anda.livejournal.com]

Egad.